I. Field of the Disclosure
The technology of the disclosure relates to monitoring fluid in a container, and more particularly to monitoring and measurement of a biomedical fluid, such as for example, urine collected in a fluid drainage container or bag from a patient using a urinary (Foley) catheter.
II. Background
In medical care settings such as hospitals and other medical facilities, it is often necessary to dispense fluid to patients. For example, an intravenous (IV) bag may be used to store saline or other fluid that is injected into a patient's veins. It is also common in medical care settings to collect fluids from patients. As an example, a urine bag may be connected to a urinary (Foley) catheter to collect urine output from a patient when the catheter is inserted into the patient's bladder. In a post-surgical setting such as intensive care, urine output of the patient is stored in a plastic bag (“urine bag”) and monitored periodically as part of monitoring of the patient's physiological parameters to determine if the parameters are within acceptable values or ranges. Monitoring of urine output is a good indication of the state of a patient's kidneys and overall fluid balance of the patient. Further, other fluid output from the patient may also be collected and monitored in a medical setting to monitor the state of health of the patient.
In the example of monitoring of a patient's urine output, it is common practice for the patient's urine output to be measured every hour. To facilitate this monitoring, the urine bag may have certain visual indicators such as volume lines that can be used to determine if the patient's urine output has increased, and if so, by what volume. The reading of the urine bag must be monitored and recorded. This requires going to the patient's bed, visually observing the urine bag, taking a measurement of urine output based on the visual observation since the last measurement, and writing the measurement of urine output into a log or documentation sheet or manually entering the measurement into an electronic medical record. Further, the urine bag may have to be emptied. This process can take substantial time, and thus, the frequency of measuring urine output may be determined more by convenience of staff schedules rather than strict physiological reasons.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a way to monitor fluid delivered from or stored in a container or bag, including in a medical setting, in an automated manner to avoid the imprecision of monitoring frequency and accuracy performed by a human being.